CHAPTER 11

 

 

The Graveyard

 

 

“Picnic,” said Maurice with disapproval.

“Yes.”

He opened his pocket watch. “If you’re not back by twelve-thirty, I’m coming to get you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

“Maybe she’ll stand you up,” said Maurice hopefully.

I was wrapping bottles of ginger-beer in old newspapers and loading them into a bag. “This is perfectly innocent. Besides, no one seduces a girl with ginger-beer.”

“You could,” said Maurice.

I donned a frock coat and a wool scarf and kissed his skeptical lips. “I’ll see you some time this afternoon, my love.”

 

 

London felt like a coffin, weighing me down with dirty stone and deep, cavernous shadows. Now the lid was raised, my eyes blinking in the sunlight.

I asked my hansom driver to let me out at the edge of the city so I could walk the rest of the way. Once London fell behind, my heart became as buoyant as a child’s. I was strolling through a landscape of lush green. I heard the crackle of flying insects and saw sunlight shining through semi-translucent leaves with a brilliant, passing glitter like stained glass in the wind, so different from the somber colors of London.

It was a season to rouse the senses, and I felt a flow of sexual longing to match the raw vitality of my surroundings.

Maurice should have come with me.

I tried to ignore the craving. Everywhere I looked, I could see a fine bed for lovers. . . .

This suppression of natural desires was obviously not working. Admitting defeat, I took off my coat and slung it over my arm, maneuvering it in front of my trousers.

This road saw most of its cartage at night, a fact which may surprise many of my readers. London was a hungry city, and it needed an entire army to feed it. Long lines of farmers and barrowmen started their journey to the city’s markets in the middle of the night, heading slowly along beneath dim lanterns and drifting like bobbing ghosts. The former must be at their stalls before the wholesale buyers arrived at four in the morning, and the trek of the barrowmen, painful and slow, needed to be started early from sheer necessity. Soon they would be followed by a stream of coaches and horsemen heading into the city for office and shop-work. Even in those days many a man thought London a poor place to raise his family, and he preferred to dwell in a country village, though the latter were now disappearing into London’s tentacles.

I finally located the graveyard about a half mile off the road. It was nearly hidden by vines and bushes, though someone had kept the entrance to the front gate clear. I didn’t see a church, so I guessed this must be a private cemetery for Ravenshaw’s family.

A few mounds of freshly-turned earth lay beyond the fence. None of the new graves had headstones, and I wondered at this. Couldn’t the local villagers afford them? Did the owner lease the land to the city as a potter’s field?

To the left of the graveyard stood a huge stone wall, and behind this loomed a pair of turrets styled like those of a medieval castle. This must be Lichburg. The road to the manor was little more than a pair of wheel ruts through the grass. I looked behind to see if Clara would be able to spot me if I wandered off and decided she could.

Cradling my satchel of ginger-beer, I strode in the direction of the manor. The high walls were topped with iron spikes, and I continued until I reached a heavy, wrought-iron gate. It was held shut by a thick chain that snaked through the bars, and its padlock was one of the largest I had ever seen. Balancing my satchel, I hefted the padlock and marveled at its weight. It was fully the size of my hand, and I ran my thumb over red stains of dull rust that coated it like ancient lichen. The bars, crowned with iron finials, were too close together to squeeze through.

The manor’s front garden had been left to grow wild, and it had become a thicket of grasses that reached my hips, intermingled with thistles and patches of briar taller than my head. The ruddy gravel drive sprouted a healthy abundance of dandelions and other weeds.

The lower windows of the manor were covered by overgrown yew bushes, and nearly all the rest was shrouded in ivy. Only the two front turrets of this neo-gothic folly had escaped the cascade of green. From its bizarre appearance, I decided Lichburg’s builder must have been an eccentric.

Pigeons fluttered in and out of a broken window on the third floor, and I wondered why Taillemache had not spoken to his uncle about having it repaired. Rainwater would soon rot both wall and floor and cause a structural collapse.

The wind blew, and the lush, tall grasses of the lawn rippled slowly, moving like deep green ocean waves. I watched distant pigeons playing along the window ledges and felt a powerful longing to climb the fence and explore. It seemed so peaceful; a hidden, if bedraggled Arcadia. The sight of Lichburg had a hypnotic effect on me. Obviously, I’d spent too long in a London slum if I thought Lichburg attractive.

No one appeared to be about. I turned away and headed back. Maybe Clara knew a way in.

There was still no sign of her when I reached the graveyard. Bored, I leaned against the iron gate and stole looks through the bars. After so many sessions with a lascivious Maurice among the dead, my body had been trained to respond in an exquisitely sexual fashion at the sight of headstones, a bizarre reaction I was much too embarrassed to admit to anyone, even Maurice. What can I say? I’d spent the most blissful moments of my life in such places, wallowing in delightful carnality.

I shut my eyes. My mind lingered over those sweaty memories, and I experienced a bodily sensation too strong to control. I pushed away from the fence and tried to bore myself with the sight of something else. This was not the mood in which a proper young man should be meeting a playful young lady. Or rather--

Oh, never mind.

I tried to distract myself with revolting thoughts and began with Taillemache’s stench.

But I soon realized this was a failure. At the age of nineteen, my body was overloaded with youthful vitality, and in our flat I often brooded over sex with an obsession much aggravated by the chronically eager assistance of Maurice.

I walked off into a copse of alders that hid me from the road and dropped to my knees like a man about to pray in church. Setting my frock coat aside, I undid my trouser buttons and tried to make short work of myself, struggling to wring the demon of possession out of my body before Clara arrived. I tried to be silent as I grappled with this hungry madness, my head bowed over this straining, crude creation of some sardonic God.

I could not suppress my gasps and choked noises, and though I experimented with holding my breath, this only caused more frantic, explosive breathing when I released it. The whole operation seemed to take forever, part of me anxious and wary of yielding to any sort of erotic sensation in this strange place.

I undid the buttons of my shirt to feel the wind flowing up the path to my throat, and a gust blew my hair into my eyes, making a mess. My knees were digging into the earth from my forceful motions. I stroked and pulled, but the demon kept eluding me. In a fury, I doubled my strength, finally trying to strangle my lust to death with violent hands.

It didn’t work. Angry because I was getting nowhere, my shaking hand reached for my wool scarf and wrapped and knotted it around the shaft. If I couldn’t finish this, then maybe I could suppress it. The rough material felt like a thousand pinpricks, and it hurt the way a twisting rope burn does, fraying, abrading, a pain so harsh it blinded me as it seared tight around my mobile skin. The shock of it caused the blood to leave my eyes for a moment, but then, to my amazement, I reached the heights, airless, my eyes weeping tears from the effort.

Dizzy and light-headed, I sprayed a sticky libation around the copse. My sore flesh was livid from my over-rough handling, and I removed the scarf and stroked the stinging skin tenderly with my fingertips while my breathing slowed. I finished with a look of rueful disgust and a handful of grass, using the latter to wipe myself off. Then, as I finished buttoning my trousers, I heard a noise.

It sounded like a footfall.

I turned my head. A man’s trouser leg was half-hidden behind a tree, scarcely two yards away. I wanted to pound my head with my fists. Whoever it was must have seen me.

I lifted my eyes higher and saw his face. He was staring at me from the other side of the tree, standing with legs akimbo. His features were heavy-lidded and fleshy, and the lower part of his face was covered with a close-trimmed beard and mustache. He wore his coarse dark hair slicked back. His clothes were of black wool, tailored like those of a gentleman’s, but a workman’s muscular limbs bulged inside them.

But what I noticed most was the intensity of his gaze. His lampblack eyes looked straight into mine with a sense of drooping, heavy lust. At the sight of my startled face, the corner of his mouth quirked up in a half-smile. I knew he’d seen everything, and he had been watching me quietly the entire time.

“Beautiful,” he said, in a deep voice.

I felt the base notes of his utterance travel all the way down my throat and into my groin. The shock of his cool admiration was too much, and despite myself, I felt my body respond. I stood up quickly, fumbling with my shirt buttons, my scarf, my coat and satchel of ginger-beer, confused and ashamed not only because of his voyeurism, but because of myself. What was he going to do?

Worse, I wondered what I would do, if left alone with him too long. What madness would possess me, what indulgence would my body grant him?

I looked away in embarrassment as I finished with my shirt buttons. When I glanced back again, he was gone. I was relieved. But also--disappointed?

I summoned my nerve and stepped out of the copse to face him, determined to give him a refusal. Then I wondered if he would accept it. His physique was such I doubt I could have won a fight.

No one stood in view. I paced completely around the copse of trees. Absolutely no one could be seen in any direction. Had he run off? But surely I would have heard the footfalls?

I left the tree hurriedly, my coat lying across my arm, intending to tell Clara we must dine well away from here. I was annoyed at my own idiocy and with the nuisance of the man. Then I wondered what I had seen.

I do not hallucinate. I had positively, absolutely seen a man back there and heard him speak. My head was a-swivel, my eyes studying every twitch of grass or shrub with suspicion. Could he be at the manor? I decided to follow the lane back to Lichburg to see if anyone was wandering its grounds.

My pleasant, innocent day with Clara was ruined. No matter how I joked with her or lay at ease beside her on the grass, I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about this man, wondering who he was, what passions drove him, and why he found the sight of my ecstasy so arousing.

Maurice.

I thought hard about my lover. “Maurice,” I said aloud, speaking the word like a talisman. I thought of my lover’s mouth, his lips and eager hands at my crotch.

It was like the breaking of a spell. The strange man vanished from my thoughts, and a melting warmth went through me at the thought of Maurice, lingering there in my post-coital sensations.

My feet slowed and I became sleepy. If I came across him again, he’d surely be dismayed by the sight of Clara and think he’d misjudged me.

“Stop.”

Though I’d only heard him say one word before, I knew it was my mysterious watcher. I did not turn around. “I’m sorry, but I have an engagement,” I replied, moving on.

“There will be no picnic with Clara Phillips if you continue. Ever.”

I halted, nonplussed. He knew about my meeting? How?

“Are you Professor Ravenshaw?”

“No.”

I sensed a danger to myself if I met his eye. He was too . . . interesting. But if he were a threat, I had better watch his every move.

I turned. No one was there.

“Your manner reminds me of someone by the name of Garrett.”

The voice laughed, briefly. “Didn’t you notice the new graves? Haven’t you wondered about them?”

I saw the cemetery in my mind’s eye. What was the stranger hinting at?

“You head towards death. Choose another path. Come with me.”

“Why?”

“I have aesthetic tastes, and you’re a handsome young man. I would cherish such a gift as yourself. My name is Lord Meath, and you need my protection. You do not understand that when you enter those gates, your doom is sealed.”

Meath? This was the mysterious lord who was Ravenshaw’s friend and sponsor?

“And you think your bargain is a good one,” I replied dryly.

“Come find out. The grass is soft and warm. Strip off your clothes and lie naked upon it, and let me look at you.”

I froze. His deep, challenging tone sent a teasing thrill through me. A tempting vision entered my mind. Of thick, heavy muscles as if painted by Michelangelo. A massive body with a fully erect organ protruding from a lush growth of black curls. My face against the loam with my legs apart, of a heavy weight upon me and a sharp, hard penetration and the sinuous stirrings of his body, and of his mad eyes watching my half-turned face with a predatory glitter while he listened to my ecstatic whimpers, my fist pressed to my mouth to smother them.

“You would be a delight,” he added. “Your body would fit mine like a glove. Let me have you right now.”

I swear I felt his breath against the back of my neck.

Madness, I told myself.

The only thing stopping me from saying yes was the thought of Clara stumbling across us as we coupled, of the hideous embarrassment. As for Maurice, he was far away and forgotten.

Then my nervous thumb touched the amber ring I was wearing, and I remembered my lover. “’at’s nice to know. Good afternoon, your ‘onor,” I replied with a cheeky Cockney accent.

He spoke no more.

I opened my eyes. I felt weary and distraught as if I’d been stuck inside a dream, fighting to awaken. What had happened? The dream had been so vivid, so real in its sexual allurements, that I’d almost given way.

I turned, but heard and saw nothing more of him. Oddly, I felt downcast, as if I knew he was gone for good, and part of me mourned the passing of this chance.

Madness, I repeated. I’m becoming as barmy as Garrett.

Then I scolded myself. I should not even consider betraying Maurice. Maurice was my friend as well as my lover, and he would be crushed, hurt beyond belief by my actions.

Yet I knew some of this was Maurice’s fault. By teaching me the delight of loving a man’s body, he’d left me vulnerable to the enticements of other men. I would have to guard against temptation for the rest of my life, but the temptation, at least that presented by Meath, seemed so good.

I moved on, troubled.

 

 

When I reached the gate of the manor, I saw to my surprise it was standing wide open. I glanced back at the road. A hansom cab was coming to a stop at the edge of the graveyard, and Clara was stepping down from it.

But curiosity demanded a quick gawk inside the grounds before I left to meet her. Three steps beyond the entrance--and I should have expected this, since someone must have opened the gate--a man stepped out from behind a bush.

I startled backwards, embarrassed. His hair was long and grey, his face lined with age. His clothes were good, but his pale suit looked as though it had been tailored in a previous generation.

He appeared to be in his sixties or so, and his skin was papery white. His face reminded me of a carving made out of an elephant’s tusk. There was something hard about the surface of his skin, yet it was smooth in a way that made you want to reach out and stroke him to see if his flesh really did feel like aged ivory.

For a second, I seemed to lose my moorings (which were rather loose by this time anyway) and I had to stop myself from touching him.

The grey eyes regarding me were flat, the sort of flatness of a cold, dangerous mind--or an insane one.

Nervously, I spoke. “Good afternoon. Are you Professor Ravenshaw? I’m Seth Keane, apprentice to Mr. Joseph Phillips. My friend Clara Phillips has decided to hold a picnic at a nearby park. Perhaps you may know her?”

“I do,” he replied. “She is my godchild.”

His eyes went up and down my figure, and his face bore a hint of contempt. I recognized that air of slight scorn. It was usually on the face of a man during his first meeting with his daughter’s suitor.

Flustered, I realized I was in danger of rousing Ravenshaw’s ire in his nephew’s cause. “She’s my friend, only that,” I added quickly.

Having completed his sneering study of my person, Ravenshaw’s eyes dropped to my gesturing hand and became fixed there.

What was he staring at? I glanced down at my fingers. Too late, I remembered Maurice’s gift of the ring. Of tiny flies trapped in a band of amber.

A ring stolen from this very manor.

I looked up, my awkward tongue searching for an explanation.

I caught a glimpse of a fist swinging at my face, and I lost myself in a terrible explosion of pain.

 

 

 

Continued in Fever Nights,

Volume Two of the Wound of the Rose Trilogy